Page 30 of Situationship
Impressed, and a little curious about the laid-back boy turned meticulous man, she casually snooped through his cupboards, and thumbed through the basket of clean shirts. Men’s shirts.
She lifted one and held it to her nose, breathed in, and groaned. The faded University of California, Davis shirt smelled like laundry soap, sea air, and testosterone. Waves of testosterone with a hint of cologne that called to her nipples like a sexy male siren luring her in for another sniff.
“You need a moment?”
She whirled around to find Colin standing in the doorway. He’d found a pair of jeans, but still no shirt, making his current position, hands gripping the trim above the door, all the more problematic. She now had a visual to match the feel and scent.
“Yes, I mean, no. I was just . . .”
“Smelling my shirt like it was porn?”
“Mine’s wet.” She closed her eyes and groaned again, this time from embarrassment. “My shirt is wet.”
He headed toward her, not stopping until they were sharing the same space and she was forced to take a step back—bumping up against the counter. Colin rested his palms on the cabinets next to her head, his arms caging her in, his lips . . .
Oh my, this is bad. Incredibly, wonderfully bad.
“What else would you be referring to?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” She had always been a tactile kind of person, so she quickly shoved the shirt between them like a shield so as not to climb him like a tree—a big, built tree that smelled like the hot summer nights of her teenage past.
“Talk about this?” He traced a finger along her jaw and the air wentsnap-crackle-pop.
Teagan swallowed and was a nanosecond away from agreeing when, from the kitchen, came an impatient, “Arf! Arf! Yack.”
Gaze locked and loaded, Colin stepped back and came away with a fresh shirt. The big jerk winked. “Remember those towels. Second door to the right.”
* * *
Colin West was in survival mode.
Hell, he’d blown right past survival mode.
That little run-in with Teagan yesterday had his fight-or-flight response sounding the alarm. He wasn’t hardwired for flight, never had been, which was why it was imperative he fight the urge to follow through on any fireworks—past or future.
Each unexpected encounter threw him more off-kilter. Despite being a creature of habit, Teagan had become a master of the unexpected. There were a few times growing up that she’d shocked the hell out of him. Some of them good.
One of them not. And, going forward, that was the memory he needed to remember.
He’d been honest when he said he didn’t hate her. But that didn’t mean he trusted her. With neither one of them leaving Pacific Cove for the foreseeable future, navigating this situation was about as simple as navigating an abandoned minefield.
Good thing Colin knew better than to show weakness in the face of danger. After treating an injured and scared bear in the field, not much threw Colin off his game. He was levelheaded, calm under pressure, and knew how to take charge in even the most life-threatening of situations. It was what made him such a great vet. But it was his years of single parenthood that made his game face impenetrable.
Colin’s phone pinged with a text. It was his daughter and,Lord help him,she wanted to know if she could stay home from school. Apparently, she was having a pimple crisis.
Setting his internal response to cool, calm, and in control, he texted back.
USE THE EXPENSIVE COVERUP YOU JUST
HAD TO HAVE AND CHARGED TO THE
“FOREMERGENCIESONLY”CARD.
IT WAS AN EMERGENCY. I’M ON
MY PERIOD&HAVE CRAMPS.
A few years ago, that tactic would have worked. But he’d since learned that, while he wasn’t a woman and would never know what it felt like to have cramps, high school girls tended to use them as a go-to excuse for skirting responsibilities, skipping chores and school and—
